[ The thing is Australia had a superssion order on the findings, but the rest of the world was publishing it ... actually some stories cannot be accessed still ( " google cant find that article " ) ... ; ]

... also, what about his 'defense' ... his lawyer 'pleaded' to the court ;

" Richter tried to argue there were “no aggravating circumstances” to one of the offences. It was “no more than a plain vanilla sexual penetration case where the child is not actively participating,” he told the court.

"It will have to be appealed on a point of law ... " .. not some stupid and irrelevant excuses like they have come up with so far .

I myself have been through a long and exhausting Supreme Court trial hat we won but they took that to appeal too, and we won again. Usually its a financial tactic (like all of court prosecutions like those ) but in this case , they are playing their hand against government funding. I suppose the only reason is to be able to maintain he was innocent , and will not give up .

Its tricky as there where no witnesses and only the victims word. They will probably try to beat down the witness and go through their past with a sieve . Its a shame the swimming pool case was not heard , a good strong witness there .

I have an urky feeling ; what f the appeal is successful ? Now they will not be able to hold the other cases (or at least defense will be able to tie up the hearing happening for some time ) as they moved ahead to convict him on this current charge.

(You would not believe the machinations that go on behind the scenes in a Supreme Court case ; during the time period of our case ;

First we got notifications and letters from ' The Department of the Attorney General ' then the letterheads changed to ' The Department of Justice and the Attorney General ' WTF ! I couldnt believe it { Separation of Powers ; Ag Dept and Dept of Justice are supposed to be 'separated' } .

The Police Minister got sacked and a new one appointed and then HE got put in charge of the other two now joined departments to make the three 'separated' powers joined together. So instead of three separate men wearing three separate 'hats', it was now one man wearing a 'triple crown' .... thats even better than the double crown of ancient Egyptian Kings.

But then the other ministers who ran those departments felt left out so they where kinda reinstated, so then they had a weird triple single crown with three men trying to fit under it . And , in other ways, a lot of this was played out in court between the Judge (Judiciary ) and the Attorney General ; ( Administrative) our prosecutor. It was like the AG where saying ' We own you know, we are the boss of your department " and the judge was "not on your Nellie" . All going on in our court case !

And that was a minor case (although of great interest to the local legal profession and "in the public interest' .

My point is ... all sorts of things come into play behind the scenes; ministers shifting around, police being sacked, prosecutors or defense being interfered with, changes in parliament and the most basic point of law foundation in the country " Separation of Powers' 'interfered' with.

So in a huge case like this ...... who knows. There is 'influence' about. I just hope my rotten suspicion is that he will get off on appeal and they therefore will not be able to hold the stronger case (and why didnt they hold that first ? ) because of potential 'unfairness' ... is just my paranoid imagination.

I think the more interesting point is why this sort of behavior happens in religious circles/churches/temples and other reps of various religions (not only in the catholic church, we have multiple examples from every religion of sexual misconduct by religious figures)...

Historically the question would be how bad it was depending on historical period... For example in the middle ages, church reps probably did not have to fear that justice would catch up with them for such misconduct... so was there more or less of it ?

An institution banning marriage and recently renowned for attracting homosexuals trying to hide their true sexuality through a convenient vow of celibacy. Or legit sexual deviants. They enter a world whose parishioners hold the priests as high authority figures. It turns out early on that seminaries are basically bath houses in frocks, and that most priests are having sex wantonly, either with one another or with female parishioners. Or with kids. And nobody seems to have a problem with it, the highest levels of the Church are doing it too, the Bishops are sometimes the worst, and the Pope is in cahoots too at the very least suppressing it all. Add in that being caught as a pedophile means just a slap on the wrist and a transfer. Up until a few years ago, not even a real worry about civil prosecution.

Yes those things have happened in other organizations. But Pell and the church is specifically odorous. With other organizations, they don't protect their pedo suspects with a huge mega rich multi national organization and just shuffle them around the place to abuse others. This is an institution which supposedly is in charge of peoples spiritual development . Pell was charged with supposedly helping to resolve the abuse issue as well. And also he had a smug "can't touch me" attitude.

He was also the spokesperson for catholic morals " His schitck was sex " reporters pointed out . He was the churches moral spokesperson; no sex before marriage , no IVF for unmarried, no homosexuals, dont use contraceptives etc etc ... the churches position on sex was echoed and reinforced by him , he made it his career and used that to advance his position .

I think the more interesting point is why this sort of behavior happens in religious circles/churches/temples and other reps of various religions (not only in the catholic church, we have multiple examples from every religion of sexual misconduct by religious figures)...

Historically the question would be how bad it was depending on historical period... For example in the middle ages, church reps probably did not have to fear that justice would catch up with them for such misconduct... so was there more or less of it ?

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